George
W. Bushs public relations strategy in the face of a slumping economy is to
convince the American people that hes personally concerned about the
depressed stock prices and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The word concerned has become a staple of Bushs
remarks, whether at Labor Day rallies or on the White House lawn.

Bush has even declared his strong affection for the
American people. During an appearance in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday with
Mexicos President Vicente Fox, Bush announced that Fox loves the people of
Mexico, and I hope by now theres no question that I love the people of
America as well.

Bush elaborated on his concern Friday in comments about the
sharp increase in the unemployment rate to 4.9 percent. Any American out of
work is one too many Americans out of work, Bush said.

Clearly, the younger Bush doesnt want to make the
mistake his father made when he seemed to be insensitive to the suffering of
Americans during the last recession in the early 1990s. So Bushs
speechwriters have inserted frank rhetoric about the existence of an economic
problem  the slowdown is real, Bush said Friday  combined with
expressions of sympathy for the average guy  its affecting too many
lives, and were concerned about it.

As for how the White House will address these deepening
economic woes, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to his legislative agenda:
maintain the $1.35 trillion tax cut, open new government lands for oil and
natural gas drilling, and grant the president more power to speed trade
agreements.

But Bushs words did nothing to boost the spirits on Wall
Street.

Prior to Bushs talk, the stock market had been making a
modest rally, reversing some of the heavy losses earlier in the day. As Bush
spoke, however, the Dow Industrial index slipped lower again, eventually
dropping about 30 more points before trading ended with the Dow at 9,605.85,
matching lows not seen since March and April. The broader Standard &
Poors index of 500 stocks fell to its lowest point in three years.

The markets reaction to Bushs talk was so striking
that the CNBC anchor asked one of the networks floor reporters what traders
were saying. The reporter recounted how the traders simply shrugged their
shoulders at Bushs remarks, with one trader dismissing Bushs comments as
just words.

Hollow Ring

To other Americans, Bushs protestations of concern may
have the hollow ring of his fathers famous recitation of a talking point
during the 1992 campaign, Message: I care. Or the younger Bush's own
garbled expression of sympathy for the average Joe in the 2000 campaign: I
know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.

The younger Bush might be missing another important point.
During an economic slump, Americans expect more from a president than sympathy
and awareness of the obvious. They want someone who can rally the nation out of
its economic doldrums and instill a confident can-do spirit.

The historic benchmark is Franklin Roosevelts
exhortation that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Voters saw
some of that uplifting rhetoric in presidents from John Kennedy to Ronald
Reagan. For boundless optimism, few presidents could match Bill Clinton who
convinced many voters that he really did wake up every morning thinking about
what he could do to make their lives better.

Clinton also surrounded himself with shrewd thinkers 
the likes of Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers  who understood the complex
three-dimensional nature of modern world economics. One could disagree with
their strategies but few questioned their subtle appreciation for business
intricacies as they navigated economic threats, from the Asian flu
financial contagion to credit crises in Mexico, Russia and Brazil.

By contrast, Bushs economic team has left even
pro-Republican Wall Street grumbling over a perceived simple-mindedness. Though
Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill was well regarded as chairman and chief
executive officer at Alcoa, he has come across as eccentric and out of touch
during his seven-plus months as the Bush administrations chief economic
spokesman.

Bush Himself

A bigger problem seems to be Bush himself. After securing
the White House, he chose to talk down the economy as a way to build support for
his tax cut. The negative comments rattled an already shaky stock market.

Then, when Bush tried to sound reassuring, he was hampered
by his inability to speak in anything more than repetitious sound bites. He is
viewed widely  even by his supporters  as lacking intellectual firepower.

Beyond U.S. borders, he is seen as a dunce who grabbed
power illegitimately through the unprecedented intervention of his fathers
allies on the U.S. Supreme Court  a view shared by many Americans. With the
world facing a synchronized slowdown of all the major economies,
international business leaders are unnerved to have someone regarded as a
simpleton at the helm of the largest economic power, the United States.

Bush has compounded this concern about a U.S. economy
drifting away from the rest of the world through a series of unilateral
foreign-policy decisions. He has repudiated new international agreements, such
as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, as well as older ones, such as the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in favor of a single-minded determination to press
ahead with Ronald Reagans dream of a missile shield.

If Gore Had Won

Bushs anti-government ideology also has prevented him
from formulating a strategy in which Washington takes the lead in priming the
research-and-development pump for some innovative technology that could become
the next New Big Thing for the economy.

Bush and his fellow free-marketers insist that innovation
comes from the private sector, not from the government, and that the government
should just get out of the way. This summer, Bush personified that attitude when
he devoted nearly a month to vacationing on his ranch in Texas, recharging his
batteries.

By contrast, if Al Gore had won the presidency, he might
well have spent the summer rolling up his sleeves and working on some new
technological endeavor. Gore  a prime mover in convincing Congress to finance
the Internets infrastructure in the 1980s  had wanted to invest a chunk of
the federal budget surplus in the next generation of alternative energy sources
as well as in vehicles that would be less harmful to the environment.

One almost could picture Gore out with a road crew
replacing old-fashioned asphalt with solar panels on the nations highways.
But Gore didn't get that chance.

After Bush moved into the White House, he bet the surplus
on his tax cut, pulled out of the Kyoto agreement and called for greater
exploitation of fossil fuels.

'Captain Kirk'

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd caught the mood of
Bushs retrograde era.

Our missile shield, more science fiction than science,
has become a metaphor for our passive, defensive, retro crouch. In the name of
Captain Kirk, how did this happen? How did we end up charting a course to
timidly go where every man has been before? [NYT, Aug. 19, 2001]

While agreeing with her point, some of Dowds readers
might have found her professed confusion about how this happened a touch
disingenuous. After all, a key reason the nation is going through this reverse
time warp is that pundits and columnists such as Dowd obsessed endlessly over
Gores clunky personality and exaggerated his supposed exaggerations, while
giving Bush and Cheney a relatively free ride. [See
"Protecting Bush & Cheney," Oct. 16, 2000]

The price for that media imbalance is now being paid.
Because of last fall's events, the United States is led by a man who has shown
very limited ability to grasp the complexities of the economic challenges ahead.
Worse yet, he is a man who inspires little public confidence and cannot be
expected to rally the American people with his words.

As is typical, the heaviest burden is falling on the poorer
elements of American society, such as the African-American community and other
minority groups whose unemployment rates are skyrocketing. The pundits will feel
the pain mostly in their shrinking portfolios, as stock prices, too, retreat to
levels of yesteryear.

An economy struggling to overcome a devastated technology
sector and a weakening consumer sector also must overcome what might be called
the Dolt Factor, a stomach-turning awareness that the leader of the most
important economy in the world doesnt have the skills or wisdom to point a
way out.